Chapter 13/?
Chapter Warnings: boatloads of pre-parental angst
Additional Notes: I can't even apologize at this point for the wait, but I'm going to try - so very, very sorry for keeping you waiting. Life enjoyed getting in the way of, ah, everything. See end of chapter for further notes on updates.
Thanks To: gryffindorandproud on tumblr made an absolutely lovely cover for TSST and inducted it into her hall of Modern Sherlockian Classics, so many thanks in that vein. And also, always, to KT-the-magic-beta, who somehow sticks around and is much too brilliant for me to ever measure up. And to my readers, who have been so amazingly, wonderfully, stunningly faithful. I can't even begin to thank you all enough.
(Sunday, February 26th, Week 24)
"Alright, that's it."
Sherlock glances up from the kitchen table. Much better alternative to staring down at the thoroughly unappetizing plate of... whatever it is John has set before him. He lifts an eyebrow. "That's what?"
"We need..." John searches for words, biting his lip and squinting at the ceiling, as if they'll fall down from the plaster. "...we need a distraction."
"From?"
He huffs. "All of it? There's no case, no clients of any kind - even the website's been quiet. We're going mad all cooped up in this flat." And ever since you came home that night things have been off between us. He doesn't say it, but Sherlock can see the way it flickers, just behind his eyelids before he turns away and passes a hand over his face.
Sherlock considers, pushing the plate subtly away from him as he leans forward on the table, tapping the tips of his fingers together. "What do you propose, then?"
The furrows in John's forehead deepen. He pushes the plate back. "You're very... question-y today."
It's Sherlock's turn to frown. "Questioning." The plate moves more firmly this time, scraping unpleasantly over the wood. "And you're posing a lot of vague statements, so why shouldn't I be?"
"Hey, calm down, no need to get defensive," John says, throwing his hands up in mock surrender. "I only wanted to get your thoughts. You've just been a bit closed off recently, I guess."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
A humorless smile is tossed in his direction. "You're doing it again." He gives the dish a frankly violent shove, and the food wobbles precariously.
"Doing what?"
"That!"
"I don't know what 'that' is!" Sherlock cries in frustration, slicing the dish across the table. The kitchen is completely silent while they hold their breaths and watch as it tips over the edge, tips back, forward, back again, and finally crashes inevitably to the floor. Then quiet again, a deadly sort of quiet as John glares at him and the food starts to seep into the cracks of the tile.
Sherlock's hands go out helplessly before him. "I don't even know what that is," he adds, gesturing at the plate and the mush sitting sadly on the ground.
The exasperation on John's face softens into humor. "You deleted oatmeal?"
The corner of his nose wrinkles in distaste. "Who wouldn't?"
At this, John can't help but laugh, even as he's pacing back to the cupboards for a dust pan. "Oh, god; this is what I mean," he says, fingers closing over the handle, and he turns back to Sherlock. "Us, arguing over absolutely nothing. You and me," he muses, brandishing the pan thoughtfully, "we need to get away."
Sherlock casts his eyes down. He doesn't deny that he's been more absent than usual. Infant preparations, casework... dwelling overmuch on Mycroft's words. It all added up eventually. And often, they were used to the silence - it was one of the first things he'd told John, really.
But this had actually been days on end, and as John stoops to clean up another of his messes, he can see that behind his exasperation is a familiar concern. Irritation at needing to be looked after; anger that someone thinks he can't do it on his own - it should all be there, would have been in different circumstances but some instinct that has grown out of living with the man says otherwise. John's concern isn't babying. It's being a good man.
Sometimes, he forgets the magnitude of the strange coincidence that brought them together.
More often, he forgets that if he truly does care for him (by now not even a question), he should want to do certain things in thanks of it. He does. But sometimes the forgetting is too easy.
"Where?" he inquires, tracking John's careful movements.
"To get away?"
Sherlock's sigh says, don't make me repeat myself.
John stands, rolls his eyes and moves to the rubbish bin. "Just making certain. I didn't think - wasn't actually sure you'd go for it, to be honest."
"That depends on the location. And a variety of other factors."
John flexes his hands over the back of the chair as he stares across at Sherlock. "Are we talking an actual holiday, or...?"
"It was your idea," Sherlock sniffs.
"Giving you input, Sherlock," he warns. "You like making all our plans, give me a minute to get used to the power here."
He quirks a smile upwards despite himself. John catches it, and smiles back, and just like that the last remnants of tension are draining out of the room. His squared posture drops, and his hands fall away from their clenched position.
"Give me a bit to think on it. Tea?"
"Please."
(Wednesday, February 29th, Week 24 continued)
John strides into the surgery lobby, spotting Sherlock in one of the waiting room's empty chairs. His face slouches into a grimace, and he makes his way over more slowly, huffing a little as he sinks into the seat.
"Don't say it," he says warningly as Sherlock opens his mouth. His lips curl in response, the hint of a smirk as John settles lower with another sigh. "Work was a madhouse," he groans, waving a hand wildly back at the direction where he'd come from. "Some sort of flu bug going around. Jesus, and I thought we were almost out of the danger zone for that."
"Apparently not," Sherlock says, folding his hands over his protruding abdomen. John runs a finger across the back of one hand, tracing where metacarpals lie just beneath the skin. It flexes under his touch. His eyelids flicker up to Sherlock's face.
"I am sorry I couldn't be there for the appointment."
Sherlock tips his head.
He frowns at Sherlock's silence. "What'd they say?"
The breath exits his nostrils noisily. "Nothing out of the ordinary. We're both fine." He flashes a quick smile, but John's lips remain downturned.
"Hey," he says gently, his hand now cupping Sherlock's fully. He tilts his head, peering up at him, even as Sherlock won't meet his gaze. "You okay?"
"Fine. Fine," he says again, staring down at the darker tones of John's flesh over his pale fingers. "Just... thinking." This time he relaxes visibly, some of the tension dissipating out of his shoulders, his spine uncurling, and his hand turning under John's to clasp his fingers. He raises it to his lips, and John's eyes narrow fractionally as his lips press against it and his eyes squeeze shut.
"Sherlock," he prompts, voice low.
His ice grey eyes, abruptly devoid of the warmth he'd felt in the touch just milliseconds before, snap open again, and he allows John's hand to fall. "Cab's waiting outside," he states briskly, sliding past John's steady look of concern, and rises with a careful hand over his belly.
But John catches his other fingers, and even when he stiffens doesn't allow him to pull away.
It's an uncomfortable sort of handholding as they pile into the back of the taxi, Sherlock staring down at it in some obvious discomfort and John growing more disconcerted by the minute. Awkward seconds dragging past, he switches to trailing it back up to the nape of Sherlock's neck and curls a finger through his hair, twisting absently. Sherlock shakes his head minutely, still refusing to look at his face.
"That tickles," he says with another shake, some time later, and can't stop a soft grin from creasing at the corners of his eyes. John jumps on it, smile broadening infectiously, but he sobers as Sherlock at last catches his gaze. His face, however, remains soft, and Sherlock stares into it with an unexpected - unexpectedly fierce - desperation as the taxi speeds closer and closer to home.
"I don't know - Whatever's wrong, or off, or if anything, really, is the matter," he says haltingly, hand stilling on the back of Sherlock's neck, "I want to help you, I want to be there for you. Whether or not you want to talk about it, I just - I'm here. D'you understand?"
There's something in the devastated lines of Sherlock's face that should be a warning sign, but John waits with lifted eyebrows. "I understand," he says thickly, and leans into John. John stares for a moment longer, and then sighs. He bypasses Sherlock's lips, tilting his head up and pressing a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth, one to each cheekbone, over his eyelids, providing what small comforts he can give. Sherlock's mouth falls open, breath rasping over John's until he finally closes the distance. A soft sound falls from his lips, and John curves closer and breathes into him, allowing Sherlock to just do the same.
I love you. John feels it whispered against his cheek, and presses his forehead against Sherlock's. I know, it says. He doesn't doubt there's more Sherlock needs to say. He doesn't doubt it for a second that this unspoken conversation needs, urgently and essentially, to come to words. He believes, as strongly as he knows that what Sherlock confessed in his silence is true, that he is ruminating on something. But as with any case, John also trusts him to find the answers in his own time.
So John pulls back, settles against his own seat, and offers some answers of his own. "I called Harry the other day. She's doing well," he responds to Sherlock's look of casually piqued interest. He smiles quickly. "She and Clara are. I mentioned our vacation idea, and Clara's parents have this lake house a bit north of here. It's, ah, too cold for swimming, or anything, but I think it could be nice."
"Sounds quiet."
"And that's so very much our style," John smirks, and Sherlock chuckles quietly. He turns his eyes up to John.
"But it could be. Nice."
"Really?"
Sherlock nods. "Really," he confirms.
A quick flush of pleasure rises across John's neck, wholly unexpected, and he quickly looks away. "We'll look into it more at home," he says to the window, and Sherlock can see the glassy reflection of a vivid smile against the backdrop of grey London speeding past.
That evening they call Harry, but it's Clara who answers the phone.
"John! Been much too long," she says warmly into the receiver, and he allows his eyes to flutter shut and sends a prayer to whoever's listening that he'll continue to call Harry and be able to hear her voice on the other end, too. "Harry says you're interrupting, so make it quick."
John barks a laugh. "Alright, do my best. Listen, we've talked about the lake house, and -"
"Oh, d'you love it? Knew you would. Everyone does. Mum and da don't use it nearly enough. Just come pick up the keys whenever," she says breezily.
"Oh. Ah, alright," he says, a little off-balance as she speaks right over him, but smiling nonetheless as he remembers days he'd listen to her chatter for hours, as her hands flew about like fluttery peach birds and her eyes lit up with the joy of her own stories, and her white teeth flashed with each gust of her ecstatic, catching laughter. Remembers how, in the early days, he'd see the same wondering smile written all across the lines of Harry's face, and how they were both rapt under her light. Clara had a magic to her, irresistible in its effusive charms, and he'd missed it, too. Missed it more for how it made Harry feel. But, at the sound of her giggling in the background, memory becomes reality, and he marvels at the simple, extraordinary (extraordinarily welcome) return of it.
They exchange a few more words, when Clara says suddenly, "I've never met this Sherlock of yours. I mean, Harry's told me all about him, of course. But I'm looking forward to it."
John darts his eyes over to Sherlock, who's laying on the couch, hands poised under his chin. "Yeah, me too."
"It's just... I know things were shaky with me and Harry, but, ah..." He can hear her shifting, and Harry's sudden silence in the background. "...you always tried to be there for us. I'm glad you've found someone who's there for you."
John swallows, and Sherlock turns his head. Their gazes lock. "So am I. More than glad," John says, an unexpected roughness coating his throat, and Sherlock quirks one corner of his mouth and turns away again. So much more than glad.
He sends them love, as per Harry's demand, only rolling his eyes briefly and with good humor, before shutting off his mobile. He sits on the couch next to Sherlock, clapping a hand on his thigh. "Well, that's that. Whenever we want it, it's ours."
"When do we leave?" he queries.
"I was thinking... Friday? Give us time to get our things in order, then we can have a weekend. Maybe a week if we decide we really like it," he smirks.
Sherlock arches his head back against the arm of the couch. "Acceptable." He opens one eye and peers down at John. "Will there be wi-fi?"
"Vacation, Sherlock. From the Latin for no, you arse, we're getting away from all that."
A crease appears between Sherlock's eyebrows. "I'm fairly certain that's incorrect."
John grins. "Either way. No cases, no job. Just us. Just for a bit," he promises, rising to his feet. "That acceptable, too?"
Sherlock sighs breathily, but there's mirth in his eyes when he says, "I suppose."
John gives him a playful slap on the knee before turning into the kitchen and rummaging through the fridge, frowning at the contents (or lack thereof). "Looks like a shop trip before lunch. We'll need some food for up at the lake, anyway. Coming?"
He turns and his eyes widen in surprise as he finds Sherlock crowding in behind him. "Of course," he says, and John nods, though he places a hand on his chest and pushes him back a bit, looking pointedly down his pregnant form. "Personal space, love. I'm not going anywhere. Er, except to the Tesco."
He misses the fractional sharpening of Sherlock's mercurial gaze, but flashes him another concerned glance when he continues to huddle closer on the stairs.
And though he still waits for the answers, waits for Sherlock, John can give him what he needs in the meantime, without knowing. Some things are unspoken, he repeats, in the mantra he's decided to take up until what Sherlock's working through becomes clear. He threads his fingers loosely through Sherlock's gloved hands and doesn't let go, and - for the moment - it's enough.
(Friday, March 2nd, Week 24 continued)
Friday morning arrives, crisp and clear, potential rising with the sun - but the sunrise is about where it ends.
"Ready?" Sherlock sighs as he wakes, voice rough with sleep, and John shivers out of his own slumber.
John gives him a strange look, nose scrunched and the skin around his mouth suddenly tense and white. "I think I'm going to be sick," he says, and before Sherlock can even think up a proper response, promptly is over the side of the bed.
Sherlock hovers over Mrs. Hudson's shoulder as she brushes past him into the flat, a plastic-covered bowl held gingerly between her hands. "It's a good thing you called me, Sherlock Holmes," she tuts without preamble, setting the dish down on the table and peeling back the overwrap. Steam unfurls from beneath the condensation-dotted cover that she tosses into the bin, and the warm aroma, distantly reminiscent of vague childhood illnesses and the warmth of his home's sunny yellow kitchen in the summer, diffuses throughout the room. He wrinkles his nose at the unexpected, sentimental thought. She turns a sharp eye back in his direction. "I've handled plenty of these nasty bugs. Leave it to me, and your doctor will be good as new in no time."
Sherlock, peering warily into the contents of the bowl and inhaling, steps aside guiltily when she shoos him away - presumably to watch, passive, as she does all the fussing.
He values her assistance, considering the circumstances. But truth be told, it was John who'd required - commanded, really - him to let her step in. "I am a doctor. I can take care of myself," he'd huffed around a grimace of pain, teeth clenching as he burrowed further into the blankets on their bed. Pale and feverish, it was only after minutes of Sherlock's anxious watching that he'd finally rolled over, eyes squeezing shut and his hands reaching upwards to cover them. "But if you're going to stand there worrying, get Mrs. Hudson to do it for you. Don't need you getting sick, too."
It was the first time he'd ever truly begrudged the presence of the daughter he was carrying.
It was an innumerable one in which he'd wondered at how irritatingly helpless he'd become - not altogether unwillingly - since John Watson became a permanent figure in his life.
As Mrs. Hudson pads lightly up the stairs, Sherlock lets his head dip against his chest. He slides his hands back and forth over the bulge under his sleep shirt, and feels the air from his rippling sigh ghosting across it as his gnashing jaw relaxes with each stroke. "You'll fall ill eventually, too," he begins conversationally, considering the skin and what lies beyond the surface. "Acquiring immunity to everything is physically impossible, though the antibodies I'm giving you should certainly help. Medicine is... somewhat improved. But your father - other father - knows a pleasantly surprising number of effective remedies. You'll generally be safe from the worst of it."
He frowns, hands stilling in response. For a moment he simply stares down, but he's not really seeing anything. "It's... alarming, the number of things we can't protect one another from. All three of us. Don't -"
A strong punch at his stomach stops him short. He glances down in surprise, the odd sensation of being kicked from the inside-out still processing. His fingers hesitate, then flutter down in quick succession, a rapid tap-tap-tap that is answered by another sharp rap from within. Despite his situation and the griping of mere moments before, a warm smile alights on his features.
"Ah," he breathes, looking toward the murky photograph now tacked with care to their fridge and dropping his head again, almost amazed at the amount that glossed ink, for all a picture might be worth, is not able to capture on its own. "There you are."
He doesn't pretend she understands any of what he's saying or feeling in that instant. Even with his intelligence alone passing down, it's a ridiculous notion. But deceptive, lovely sentiment still leaves him feeling softened at the edges; a feeling of being not quite so alone, not quite so uncertain. He hugs himself more tightly.
"Oh," he hears, and the moment dissipates when he raises his eyes to find Mrs. Hudson, fingers pressed to her lips, staring at him from the open arch of the kitchen. There is liquid pooling beneath her eyes, even as she attempts to blink it back.
He rises on shaky legs, alarm thrusting him upwards. "What?" his sharp voice commands, barely a question. "Is he -"
"Oh," she says again, and then chokes out a laugh. "No, dear, he's just fine. Resting now. I was just... you and the baby, there, I can see it."
He frowns, wondering at the suggestion that this is cause for tears. Unless -
She steps closer, places a comforting hand across his forearm and smiles up at him with her kind, deep eyes. "You'll make a lovely father. I've never doubted it, no matter the messes and the shouting and... you." Sherlock doesn't have time to be affronted before she's shaking a finger at him and saying, "And don't you doubt it, either."
"How can you know?" The question rises, unbidden and unwanted, before he can rein it back, but it hits the air and he flinches at the rawness of it hanging there between them.
She regards him steadily, and the silence is almost as terrible as the vulnerability of the words. "Parent to parent," she murmurs at last, and though she's smiling, the eyes that meet his own are fracturing, a deep sadness spilling out from within them. But it's not a sadness that spills out into tears - no; it's with a sort of familiar, quiet bravery that she stares upwards, broadens her lips into a full and radiant smile, and at last moves past him.
She's saying something about calling if he needs help, again offering so much more than he's ever deserved, but he isn't listening. And when she turns her back, he speaks instead. "Her name. What was it?" He never would have asked before. Irrelevant. But... it seems important. It seems more than important to know now.
A long, full pause. "Winnifred." She hesitates again, and he watches her spine pull straight and her head tip back as she inhales. "It means 'joy'. She was my greatest." The pain is gone from her tone, the ache of years having dulled it. There's a wistfulness to it, a quiet grief that would flare like trick candles until she was dead and gone - but she is far from crippled. What happened has made her... better, somehow. Not the loss, but what she has gained.
In the way only a parent can, he understands, both what is said and what passes silently between them before their landlady makes her way back to her own home below. And, he thinks, privately, is better for it. The parent-to-be and the parent-who-was; they both share that curious conflict between protecting at all odds and taking the necessary risks, both themselves and the ones they love by blood and bond alike. And, as with any burden, one that is shared is more easy to bear.
No, he realizes at last, feeling a calm he hadn't felt in days - weeks - spread, tingling, throughout his muscles, his arms relaxing to their now natural position poised across the expanding crest. No, he isn't alone. Far, far from it.
"You shouldn't be in here," John's voice, reminiscent of particularly unpleasant combination of wet and sticky gravel, enters his consciousness and startles him from his thoughts.
But he doesn't respond, instead curls closer to John's back, stomach just brushing against his spine with every swell of breath in his chest. He exhales across the scar vining around his shoulder, and John's skin jumps, shivering, in response. He gives a breathy laugh. "You're a nutter," he rumbles, affection in the way his hand curls back over Sherlock's hip for a brief moment before slipping away again.
"I had my flu vaccine," he says in response, forehead resting at the nape of John's neck.
"So did I," John counters, his head tilting up fractionally to peer behind his shoulder at Sherlock. The closed curtains and doors turn the day away, washing everything in murky tones of deep blues and greys, and in his blurry, aching mind the slope of Sherlock's body is just a faintly glowing light. His eyes fall closed around the image, a spot of white in the darkness on the backs of his lids.
To Sherlock, whose eyes have had time to adjust, John is the more ragged version of his usual self - he counts each new pinprick of perspiration as it appears along his hairline; he notes the small groans he makes in his uneasy sleep; he watches the minute furrows appear over his brow. Every infinitesimal shift of the body as it works to combat infection, every manifestation of it across John's frame, is tracked. And in doing so he wonders if John has done the same in the past months - watching life burgeon, just as now Sherlock watches his decay.
It's an exaggeration of the most extreme sort - John will be fine. Sherlock knows this as he knows the map of his scar. It would take more than influenza, even the worst case, to best John Watson. But it makes him think of all the other processes of life they will eventually watch one another undergo. Even now, as their child grows inside him, the passage of time is evident in the way it inescapably streams along, visible in every dying and birthing atom alike; it is an awareness that ticks away with every pulse of their hearts. And he is also aware of how much every second desperately needs to count.
Again, Sherlock doesn't move to reply. He noses into the knob at the top of John's spine, closing his eyes. John makes an effort to protest, knowing the dangers of the illness for both Sherlock and the baby, but it's half-hearted at best. There's something in the rhythm of Sherlock's steady breaths, and the warmth curving along his vertebra, that is attempting to speak all those things Sherlock could not say. And - since they rarely opted for the safe choices, even in the protection of one another - it's all too easy to fall sway and listen instead as he drifts into dreams once more.
"Five more minutes," he relinquishes with a sigh, "and then you go wash your hands and find something to do, alright?" He should order him to go. It's for the best. Five minutes could be the same as hours of exposure, the doctor in him argues. But for all that, he can't deny him this.
He hears the rustle of Sherlock's nodding against the pillow, and in something akin to an almost shy relief, his arms wind around John's sides and press him close. He's not sure whether it's the delirium of fever or not, but he thinks he hears the basics of what these warm embraces say as they guide him down into sleep.
(Thursday, March 8th, Week 25)
It's a strange haze of meds being shoved into his hands and tea cups scalding his shaking, sweaty fingers, and the soft strains of violin music drifting through the grates and resonating in his ears, one incident of Sherlock banging open his door with the words, "John! Finally! A case!... Oh. Right," and promptly exiting, a few more incidents of ordering his flatmate-cum-lover gruffly-but-fondly to sleep on the couch, and countless other moments that could have been his odd, hallucinated dreams - Sherlock falling from the sky and sprouting wings just before he hits the ground, fifty Mrs. Hudsons appearing in his room and each one offering him blanket upon blanket until the bed caught fire with the heat of it - or, just as likely, his equally odd reality.
Eventually, though, the fog lifts, and though still not ready to jump after Sherlock when he does flourish his phone and swirl off to a crime scene, he's at last well enough (or just fed up entirely with doing nothing) to want to make his own way down the stairs. Something in Sherlock lifts at the sound of hesitant footfalls on the stair, and he watches, frozen to his armchair, as John enters the room and sends him a genuine smile.
Sherlock is absolutely powerless to keep from returning it, and then abruptly, is powerless to keep his next words from tumbling into the air. "It was Mycroft."
John's smile dissolves into confusion. He holds up a hand. "No, no; not well enough yet to listen to you gripe about what your brother's done now." Sherlock can hear him starting the electric kettle as he turns into the kitchen, and waits somewhat nervously, hands folding rigidly beneath his chin and his leg hitching up across his other thigh. His back creaks a small complaint, and he lowers the same foot with more reluctance.
John's already back in the room, eyeing his jitters with the characteristic half-confusion, half-amusement that have been absent for the past week. But Sherlock can't do more than a passingly reflexive relief - the rest of him is intent on the conversation that has been prowling around the shadowed corners of their lives, evident in the tension of every absence of conversation, the reason behind their aborted holiday. The truth of the matter was, Mycroft's words had begun to grate on him. And it was so simple; should have been so easily deleted, but he can't forget the cruel superiority of his brother's knife-edged grin, informing him of how little he believed in him; how honestly he admitted his doubt. And so he himself has been doubting, both himself and what they, together, are creating. And this crippling insecurity, only vaguely remembered from a childhood of teasing and being different and [deleted], had begun a slow resurgence from the fog of memory; nameless, shapeless fears of who he is and what he is not rising to choke back the words that would have asked for reassurance.
But now he has begun, and he is going to finish it - only he can fix this for himself. Only he, with something to prove.
He and John, he has discovered with some wry satisfaction, are men of action. As much as John loves the idea of expression, Sherlock knows he'd rather walk alongside Sherlock with a gun in his hand than talk with him, and Sherlock is no different - shooting a cabbie for him, for instance, within their first hours of knowing one another, had said more than would have a declaration of devotion.
Even he, however, must admit that there are few things that would be difficult to convey accurately with action alone - unless one resorted to charades, and they were definitely not going there again.
So he snaps his book shut, and turns his serious gaze on John. John's eyebrows crawl slowly up his forehead, then retreat even further down, his lips furling into a grimace. "Alright, what did Mycroft do this time?" he sighs, sinking into the folds of the couch. With a quick second glance, he pulls the yellow blanket tossed carelessly over the sofa's arm across his lap and burrows in.
Sherlock sucks in a breath.
"A few months ago, you were abducted. I have recently been informed that this was Mycroft's doing, for," his upper lip curls into a snarl, "reasons that are baffling even to myself."
John stares.
"I... debated on whether or not to inform you. I knew you were somewhat desperate to cultivate an ideal family life for us, considering the difficulties in your own childhood and the obstacles of our lifestyle. I had imagined that by keeping his deception from you, I was protecting you."
At John's continued silence, he rushes on, fearing that if he stops he won't be able to begin again. "I am now aware of the..." For the first time he hesitates, and his hands come up to gesture feebly in the air. "Value, of the truth," he decides at last, hurrying on. "And of your value." His eyes slide away from John's as he corrects himself. "I always was - am - aware of how much you mean, but I understand my actions may not have been in your best interest. I should have allowed you to decide that for yourself."
Silence.
"And also Mycroft is a prat."
Then, more softly, "I'm sorry."
He doesn't look over, feigning interest in the dusty cover of his novel. The words don't even register in his eyes; every sense instead trained on what goes on in the background he refuses to look at but is almost painfully aware of. White noise crackles in his ears in the absoluteness of the quiet.
And then, abruptly, John's shadow is falling over him. Sherlock's head jerks back in surprise. John smiles. He sinks to his knees, hands covering the knobs of Sherlock's and sliding up his thighs before one lifts, the pad of a calloused finger rasping on the stubble of Sherlock's jaw and drawing his chin up. "Thank you for telling me," he murmurs with a great sincerity, burning like a cold flame in his blue eyes.
Sherlock's mouth works before an incredulous, barking laugh at last slips out. "You're not angry?" He's fairly irritated at the thought. He'd poured a great deal of worry and time into this for very little reaction, after all, and John was sitting there and... is that a smile?
"Angry? I - You just shared more with me than you've shared in the past two, three weeks. It was late, yeah," he concedes, dipping his head, "but it happened. I'm not the best at this, either. But this is us, working. I'm sort of... proud of you," he says, somewhat abashed, and straightens to his feet with a clearing of his throat.
The kettle gives a sharp whistle, an insistent demand that John leaves to answer. When he returns, there's a mug clenched in each hand, and he gives one over and snags a hip against the arm of Sherlock's chair, leaning in conspiratorially.
"I'll have some choice words for your brother, definitely. I hate what he did to you; I hate that he didn't tell me. I hate that he had to interfere at all when he has no right to do so." His voice is dark, and a slight shift of his shoulders calls to mind the soldier Sherlock had only ever been given glimpses of, hard-eyed and determined and fierce. He shivers, and for a moment almost pities his brother. But just as he catches it, the vision has disappeared as a desert mirage, leaving a more considerate, more secreted, version of John in its place.
"But that's Mycroft. Interfering is what he does. And to be fair," John says, nosing along the china as he tests the water's heat, "you are both absolute lunatics, and that's something I'm used to by now. Granted, he's never drugged me as part of it before, but it's not as if this is the first time your brother has abducted me off the streets."
Despite himself, Sherlock smirks. "True." He shifts over, shoulder brushing against John's hip. "You're not even going to do anything about it?"
He feels a hand in his hair, a pleasant smoothing of John's fingers threading amongst his curls and petting in gentle strokes. "I've been mad at your brother before. Actually, furious. But, ah... he paid for it then. I can actually take care of myself."
The crux of the issue slips in unassumingly, and Sherlock mulls over it in contemplative silence, pulling it agonizingly from some place beneath his ribs as he finally presents it. "I'm realizing how little I can do."
John's hand stills at the confession. When it resumes, it's with deeper care, and there's a renewed warmth in the careful cup of his hand over the globe of Sherlock's skull. "We do what we can, love. And sometimes, it's not going to be enough. Sometimes, I don't know why we try."
A melancholy threatens in the air above their heads. Though it's still early morning, the room feels darker, the space strangely claustrophobic as his voice falters. But Sherlock's spine straightens. And then it is abruptly him on his feet, moving as ably as he can to stand in front of John. He grabs at his hands and fastens them over his belly, leaning into John's space, leaving the closed suffocation of the living room behind for the infinity between them. He scrunches his nose, crooks a grin at him from beneath his eyebrows, fierce and honest. "Yes, you do."
It's one of those times they understand one another perfectly, and nothing more need be said.
"Still contagious?" Sherlock murmurs, heavy eyes dropping to John's lips.
A tongue darts between them. "Better not be," he says, breath gone shallow, one hand reaching around to the fleshy curve of Sherlock's hips and stroking up and around the back of his thigh, "because I don't think I can stop myself from k-"
His words are lost in the happy hum of Sherlock's mouth dipping into his own, and for a long while after that, no words are necessary at all.
"Amelia," Sherlock whispers, punctuating the name with a lazy bite to the tender skin beneath his chin. John arches into the touch, jaw falling slack as his head twists just the slightest bit away, but his silence is thoughtful in the hazy dark of the room.
"'S nice. Where'd you hear it?"
He tongues the rasp of John's stubble, sliding over the shell of his ear. "Irrelevant."
John's musing is interrupted only by a shiver that unfurls down from along his spine, and, seeking a grip, his fingers clasp the hard ridge of Sherlock's ankle where it's thrown over his side. "Why?" he breathes at last, thumb shifting over the bone, and with a private smile Sherlock nudges further up his sweat-stained body, one splayed hand firm over the relaxing beat under his collarbone.
"It means work," he answers to the rhythm of the heart beneath his fingers, and his next devilish grin hovers just over John's waiting, parted lips. He watches John strain for a moment, ruminating quietly for a last, precious few seconds, and then sinks into them with the murmur, "She has been, and will be, our greatest."
Thanks for reading! We're nearing the end of this thing, so stay tuned. I dare not make any promises about when I can have the next chapter done for you, but there's quite a bit of information to squeeze into the next one, so all I can ask for again (and I do hate to ask) is your patience. We're about to step things up a level here, so you can spend your time gearing up for that! Thanks again :)